


Nothing Better

by gnimmish



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 06:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14491110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimmish/pseuds/gnimmish
Summary: So, kissing is a thing that's happening between them now. And Peter's so much more than okay with that. (Set Between GOTG2 and Infinity War, no IW spoilers)





	Nothing Better

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second fic in this collection, the first being [The Gentlest, Briefest Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14464095/) though you don't necessarily need to have read that one to enjoy this. The entire collection can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ATKLTBC/).

They don’t talk about their first kiss.

But it echoes anyway, lingers between them with everything else that lingers there, carefully unsaid. Peter catches Gamora looking at him, sometimes, something gentle in her gaze, and he thinks he could stand around letting her watch him like that all day for the rest of his damn life.

And some time later they’re in a dark corner at the back of a bar in Knowhere and Gamora is leaning her weight on Peter’s arm and their knees are touching under the table and the toes of their boots keep bumping each other and Peter feels brave (…or okay, maybe just a little drunk). So he puts his arm around her shoulders, and Gamora just… relaxes into him. Like this is normal, like they touch each other in public all the time and not only in moments necessitated by immediate danger or extreme emotion.

They’re alone, at their table. Mantis and Groot are dancing on the bar, Mantis giddy on some bright blue alcoholic jello-looking stuff that has her antenna to glowing purple. Drax is arm wrestling something that looks like it’s made entirely out of rock, while Rocket hustles their growing audience for bets on the outcome. No one’s paying attention to Peter and Gamora, lingering out of the way of the crowd, heads bowed close together so they can hear each other over the music.

And Peter tries to focus through the noise and the smoke and the dim lights and the firey bootleg hooch he’s been trying to stomach for the last hour, trying to read Gamora’s gaze – trying to find permission for this – whatever they’re doing now, whatever they’re going to do next.

“Do you wanna – ” he starts, at exactly the same time that Gamora says –

“Should we – ?”

And that’s as many words as they need, just for now – with that sudden, flickering smile on Gamora’s lips, gentle and hesitant but hopeful in a way that makes Peter’s chest contract and his face get white hot because holy shit this is it, this has to be – it has to be now –

He kisses her, before he can lose his nerve, before Gamora can look away from him. And it’s terrifying, like the time his rocket boots cut out mid-mission and he plunged a thousand feet straight down with nothing but the roar of the air in his ears and his stomach pitched up to his throat before his boots kicked back in – the horror of the free fall lost under the heat of the adrenalin and the swoop of the knowledge that he had survived.

There’s nothing better and nothing more mind-blowingly terrifying than kissing Gamora in the back of this bar, while her fingers bunch in the fabric of his shirt and he finds himself combing through her hair with one hand and holding her close with the other. He breathes in the burn of the alcohol on the tip of her tongue and feels the palm of her hand on his jaw and his whole world tips on its axis because holy shit he never, ever wants this to end.

Gamora pulls her knees up onto the bench they’re sitting on, so suddenly her legs are across his and she’s all but in his lap and Peter settles into her like he’d fall into bed at the end of a long, long day – because he’s home, because he’s safe, because this is all he needs.

He has no idea how long they actually make it last, only that it’s not enough cause it could never be enough – and that by the time they both come up for air he’s done, that’s it, this is it, he never, ever wants to kiss anyone ever again but her.

In the moment after, as they linger close enough that their noses are still touching, Peter catches the edge of Gamora’s smile and wants to promise her he’ll do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, forever if he can keep her smiling like that – seriously, he will, there isn’t a damn thing in the galaxy that could possibly be more important right now.

And then Rocket crash-lands on their table having been thrown across the room by the thing made of rocks, and ‘getting out of the bar alive’ has to take precedence.

They don’t talk about this kiss, either.

They also don’t talk about the one in the _Quadrant_ ’s sick bay after a couple of bad guys get the jump on Peter and break pretty much all of his ribs and Gamora and Drax have to save his sorry ass before he got stomped to death. Even though Gamora calls him an idiot before she kisses him, and strokes his hair which is a whole thing he didn’t know he could be really, really into before her.

By the next one, pressed up against the wall of the Milano’s cargo bay just out of sight of the rest of the Guardians, waiting for them outside, Peter wouldn’t say he’s used to it – you know, at all – but he’s sort of getting the hang of the idea that kissing is a thing they do now. Gamora’s into it – into him – and he is kinda obsessed with how her mouth feels and her skin smells and the heat of her body in his arms – and he is just not gonna question any of it while it still feels so delicate. But it’s definitely a thing that’s happening now. The kissing.

“Be careful, okay?” Her eyes are deep black in the dark of the cargo bay. They are about to split up to tackle today’s mission – technically this is a heist, though their employer called it a ‘strategic re-appropriation of goods’ – Gamora with Mantis, Peter with Drax, Rocket with Groot.

“Hey, my middle name is careful, I’m a careful guy,” he holds up his hand and is rewarded with the feline curl of her smile.  

She takes his chin between her thumb and forefinger and kisses him again, soft and tender. Peter could fucking die from the way she kisses him sometimes, he really could – from the way she holds him close and still somehow holds back: the concern in her furrowed brow, the warning in her gaze, the care on her lips, fear in her silence.

“Just keep checking behind you, okay?” She says, after a moment. “Drax and I can’t always be there.”

“No more broken ribs, I promise.” He salutes her, scouts’ honour.

She touches the faint imprint of a boot heal still scarring his left temple – there’s some neat Xandarian medtech for knitting ribs nice and quick but shit’s too expensive to use on cuts and bruises so he still looks kinda beaten to hell even though he feels fine – and he catches her fingers and kisses them.

 He doesn’t have to say anything else.


End file.
